Entertainment

Marshawn Lynch forever: An ode to Beast Mode

Marshawn Lynch is no longer about that action, boss, but he'll forever remain one of a kind.

Even in announcing his retirement from the NFL at the tender pro footballing age of 29, the Seattle Seahawks running back showed the unique appeal that made him one of the most interesting and popular players in the league over the past few seasons.

Lynch made his news as only Lynch could — with a single emoji and a cryptic photo posted to Twitter in the middle of Super Bowl 50.

Lynch's Seahawks were eliminated earlier in the playoffs, but that didn't stop him from casually implying that he planned to retire while the Denver Broncos were grinding out a boring Super Bowl 50 win over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday night. Here's Lynch's post, which was retweeted more than 190,000 times in just 18 hours.

A peace sign and a photo that implies hanging up the sneakers — so beautiful in its minimalism, and so Marshawn in its glorious weirdness.

In the NFL or any other sport, there are good players and there are cool players. Lynch was the rare player both good and cool. Accepting his retirement is a process. After his cryptic Super Bowl Sunday tweet left some glimmer of hypothetical wiggle room, acceptance came in stages.

Stage 1: VettingAre we sure Lynch actually plans to retire? Is that really what he means? Could this just be a big misunderstanding, or some cruel joke on football fans? Please?? A goodbye tweet from Seahawks teammate Richard Sherman made it harder to deny that Lynch was, in fact, gone — at least from Seattle.

Salute to my guy @MoneyLynch ... It was an honor sharing the field with you.

Subsequent tweets by Seahawks owner Paul Allen and Doug Hendrickson, Lynch's agent, provided mounting evidence. The Seahawks on Monday morning posted a perfect tribute video to Lynch's career in Seattle, tagging it with an homage to his nickname, #ThankYouBeastMode.

Lynch has always boogied to his own beat, but why retire at 29? Is it over health concerns, as other players have recently said after retiring early? Is it an aversion to the politics of pro sports?

Or maybe it's simply because he can; Lynch reportedly hasn't spent a single cent of his $49.7 million in career NFL earnings.

Money in the bank

At this point, you're probably doing a double-take. Marshawn Lynch is not exactly the type of button-down dude you'd expect to have a 401(k) and five-year plan for financial success. He hasn't spent a dime of his NFL earnings? That's what NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport reported this weekend.

According to @RapSheet, Marshawn Lynch "hasn't spent a dime of his playing money."

Kind of explains his infamous "I'm just here so I won't get fined" quote from the 2014 Super Bowl media day. But still, you might ask: How is this possible? How can you simply let $50 million in career earnings sit untouched, especially when you're rich after being raised without much money in a tough section of North Oakland? Let's look back to a Forbes piece from last October.

The story detailed how much various NFL players earn in off-field income. Lynch, according to Forbes, "is the preeminent pitchman among running backs. Lynch is the only running back making seven figures off the field, and he generates an estimated $5 million."

And there you have it. But nothing supposedly surprising about Lynch should really be surprising at this point — the man is a study in contrasts.

Marshawn moments

Carolina Panthers struggle to bring Lynch down on Jan. 17, 2016.

Image: Aaron M. Sprecher/Associated Press

With his past run-ins with the law, he in some ways personifies conservative Americans' conception of the so-called "thug athlete." Yet he dedicates considerable time to working with disadvantaged kids and their families. One day, he might send a jersey to the mother of a slain high school player. Another, he might simply yell at the kids: "Don't be fuckin' robbing people! I'm serious!" His personality can be morose with much of the press — but equally full of contagious, child-like enthusiasm with teammates and kids.

Lynch is a marketing star, but still manages to function as some weird, raw antidote to Russell Wilson, the human brand, and Peyton Manning's love for all things corporate. Or he did, anyway, until hanging up those cleats on Twitter and retiring from the game.

Lynch's running style — relentless, churning, dogged, resolute, stubborn — resembled a freight locomotive powering through an Oakland train yard in the East Bay fog. That punishing style cranked out 9,112 total yards in an abbreviated career, good for 36th in NFL history. He's among the best postseason rushers ever. His most famous run — some call it the greatest run in NFL history — came in the 2011 playoffs, a 67-yard touchdown ramble in which he stiff-armed Saints safety Darren Sharper into another dimension.

Image: Mashable composite

He punctuated the score with a diving crotch grab into the end zone.

Those two moments — the savage stiff arm and the diving crotch grab — encapsulate everything we love about Lynch the player and Lynch the personality. Who can forget his classic ESPN segment below, shot with Kenny Mayne while Lynch was with the Buffalo Bills early in his career? "Play tiiiime."

And remember in 2006, when he commandeered an injury cart in celebration on the field after scoring the game-winning touchdown against Washington? I saw that from the Memorial Stadium stands; it was priceless then and is priceless now.

But the best Marshawn moment of all comes from even further back, when Lynch was a star at Oakland Technical High School. After Tech beat Skyline for the city championship, a teenage Lynch delivered a classic speech that was destined for a future well beyond the confines of local news and now lives on in the Internet's collective heart for time immemorial.

"Our linemen — oh my god!" a shirtless Lynch gushed on the field postgame, deflecting credit to his less heralded high school teammates. "If my linemen wasn't so good — oh my god, I don't know what to do! And me being as broke as I am, I'm about to find a way to treat my linemen to Sizzler!"

That's an entertaining quote from back in the day, to be sure. But — from the verbiage, to the selflessness, to the financial savvy reported on this week — it also peels back layers about what endeared Lynch to teammates and fans alike during his nine-year career. He was a high school star then, became a college sensation and now retires an NFL great before moving on to who knows what.

Sports Fails

1. Golf Cart Fail

This runaway vehicle wreaked minor on-field havoc following a high school football championship in Texas last December. But a heroic bystander hopped aboard and put on the brakes.

No casualties occurred, and the clip immediately became Internet legend.

2. Penalty Kick Fail

Watch out for the ricochet, goalie! This kid gets it in the right in the chops.

3. Mascot on Rollerblades Fail

What happens when you put an inflatable dinosaur on rollerblades and ask it to skate down a flight of stairs? Amazingness, that's what.

4. Flopping Fail

In sports, to "flop" is to exaggerate the force of contact in hopes of drawing a favorable call from officials. But you've got to time it much, much better than this guy does.

5. Hockey Celebration Fail

Apparently, if you hug a member of the opposite team after scoring a goal in hockey, you will get punched in the face.

6. Innocent Bystander Fail

This kid is just in the wrong place at the wrong time...to the benefit of the rest of us.

7. Representing Your School Fail

College football mascots are supposed to represent their schools in a fun, positive light — which doesn't typically include picking fights. Here, the University of Oregon's duck slams the University of Houston's cougar.

Bonus points for the sick elbow drop, though.

8. Weightlifting Fail

Not saying we could successfully lift 432 pounds above our heads, but dang, that looks painful.

German weightlifter Matthias Steiner dropped this massive barbell on his neck during the London Olympics this summer, but escaped serious injury.

9. Trampoline Dunk Fail

Sometimes, when you fail, you actually win.

10. Hurdling Fail

Why jump over hurdles when you could just RUN STRAIGHT THROUGH THEM?

File under: Never, Ever Gets Old.

11. Paying Attention Fail

After what could best be described as an "optimistic" shot attempt in a game last season, NBA center JaVale McGee showed some nice hustle getting back on defense. Only problem? His team still had the ball.

12. Judgment Fail

But that wasn't McGee's only legendary moment. Here, he shows why it's not a good idea to try dunking from the free throw line mid-game.

13. Olympic Promo Fail

For some reason, London's Olympic promotions this summer involved hanging Mayor Boris Johnson on a zipline while waving a pair of tiny flags.

Then he got stuck halfway through and it was pretty much the best, funniest, awkwardest thing that could have happened.

14. Grand Slam Celebration Fail

Major Leaguer Kendry Morales broke his lower left leg while celebrating a game-winning grand slam in 2010. This edited video provides the before, during and after rundown.

15. Slam Dunk Fail

See? White guys can jump? It's just the landing that's the hard part.

16. High Dive Fail

The announcer here sums it up perfectly. She calls this attempt from the 1992 Olympics "an absolute failed dive."

17. Piggyback Ride Fail

What begins as an innocent enough piggyback ride atop a fuzzy mascot turns into a pretty epic collision — and YouTube gold.

18. Long Jump Fail

Dude! If you're gonna pump up the crowd like that, you can't just faceplant into the sand.

19. Touchdown Celebration Fail

When you think about it, is there any better way to celebrate a touchdown than by pegging an unsuspecting spectator in the face? Bonus points for originality, at least.

20. Pro Golfer Fail

You'd think a professional golfer could put the ball in the hole with less than 16 strokes. Kevin Na — and the rest of the world — found out otherwise on this par-four hole at the 2011 Valero Texas Open.

21. Head-First Slide Fail

Well, that's one way of doing it...right?

22. Time Management Fail

Tie game, clock winding down — it's always better to get one last attempt up than just let the game go into overtime. A full court desperation heave with a 11 seconds to go is never the way to do it, however.

This classic gaffe by the University of Connecticut's Roscoe Smith came during a matchup of top teams in 2011.

23. Boogie Boarding Fail

Its veracity may be suspect, but this 2008 YouTube classic has more than 12.7 million views, despite a mind-numbing soundtrack.

24. Sportsmanship Fail

The summer of 2011 was a tough time for NBA star LeBron James. It was full of lingering ill-will for his decision to the leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and snarky schadenfreude over his initial failure to win a championship with the Miami Heat.

So it makes perfect sense that he'd let off some steam by viciously dunking on a tiny kid at summer camp, right? That's what happens at the 0:43 mark of this video.

25. Standing on a Basketball Hoop Fail

We're not quite sure why this mascot thought standing on top of a basketball rim was a good idea.

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